My son, seven years old, runs Windows Vista, and, honestly, he doesn’t have an antivirus system on his machine. His machine is locked down with parental controls, he can’t download things unless it’s to the places that I’ve said that he could do, and I’m feeling totally confident about that,” he added. “That is quite a statement. I couldn’t say that in Windows XP SP2.”

Sure. If you can’t load anything on a computer, then the chances of a viral infection are dramatically reduced. Moreover, with the new Address Space Layout Randomization feature Allchin also talks about in the interview, they’ve made it even tougher for a pathogen to infect your machine.

But run without AV? Right. Let’s get rid of seatbelts in cars while we’re at it. After all, airbags are now mandatory equipment.

I run my Mac without virus protection, and I run my Linux machines without virus protection. I am willing to accept the possibility, as remote as it is, and as much as it contradicts all previous experience, that the new architecture of Vista renders all previous viruses inoperable.

Of course, having said that, it seems monumentally unlikely, as that would require making such significant changes that all existing Windows software would no longer run either, and that seems … ahem … somewhat problematic.